A selection of critical essays, arranged in chronological order of publication, devoted to the works of the eighteenth-century French author and philosopher.

This collection of 5 dozen pieces of literary criticism was published in the Washington Post between March 2003 and January 2010. It is a collection of Yardley's opinions of books that he believes are worthy of a second look. They scan the realms of fiction, biography and autobiography, memoirs, and history.

"Victor Brombert's title, borrowed from William Wordsworth's ingenious metaphor, "the pensive citadel," refers to the singular world of universities. In essays on the paradoxical nature of laughter, the art of rereading, Shakespeare, Montaigne (his model as essayist), and more, Brombert reflects on a lifetime of learning whose institutional supports have greatly changed since he began his university career in the 1950s. Yet, as Christy Wampole writes...